Not Knowing: What Rumple Didn't Know
by Ellynne
Summary: Because all magic comes with a price - and so does survival


The Stargate opened. TJ, expecting to see supplies coming through – and hoping there might be something in all the things she'd requested that could save them – was surprised to see a person.

Rush.

Or Gold, as he'd revealed himself to be.

Of course, everyone thought he was really a Go'auld or something like one, though he said he wasn't. TJ still wasn't sure if she was afraid of him or not.

No, that was wrong. She was afraid of him. When she remembered what he'd done to the Lucians, to the Nakai, the sight of him covered in blood with nothing but a single knife in his hand and a trail of bodies behind him, she was terrified of him.

She was afraid of him.

She just wasn't sure she was as afraid as she should be.

Because, he had saved her life – hers and her child's. He had saved the ship and everyone on it.

Except Rush, who he had snuffed out like a candle.

And, she'd been told, he'd hesitated before saving Gin and Perry.

She didn't know if it meant anything, didn't know if it mattered. He had wanted to keep his secret. Instead, he let everyone know what he was by saving the lives of two women – one of whom, she suspected, he didn't like that much, who he _loathed._

But, after that and after his brief, careful explanation of who and what he was, he and Belle had left the meeting with Young and quietly walked to the part of the ship Rush – _Gold_ had been working on, making some kind of unspecified repairs, building a fishery, even establishing a garden.

A part of the ship, Young had then found out, whose doors didn't open when Gold didn't want them to.

Gold made a point of delivering food and other supplies from what that section produced every day. Always at different doors. Always where no one was there to see him drop them off. A message came over the com telling them where to pick it up.

There had been packages especially addressed to TJ, food for a nursing mother, hand woven diapers for Carmen – Carmen Ruth, the baby Gold had insisted could _not_ be Carmen Nicole, named for the man she'd thought he was.

Belle still chatted with TJ and with some of the others on their side of the ship over the com. Such a bizarrely normal thing to do, TJ thought.

She'd told Young, of course, and he'd told her to keep talking to her, hoping Belle would say something useful.

TJ wondered if Gold had told Belle the same thing. Chat with your friends on the other end of the ship. See what they let slip.

She wondered how much of what Belle said was carefully scripted or just Belle being Belle.

She sounded normal enough.

But, then, she'd sounded normal enough when she must have known the man she was with had murdered Rush.

He said he'd done it to save Belle.

TJ asked her about barricading themselves on the other side of the ship. Belle had sighed and said Rum was being protective (she'd started calling him "Rum" back when everyone still thought he was Rush. It had seemed like a nickname. TJ hadn't gotten up the courage to ask her if that was his real name or, if not, why she called him that). He got like this, Belle added. And there were reasons for it.

Gold had said something about those reasons when he explained what he'd done.

She didn't think he'd explained all of them.

But, whatever those reasons were, Belle didn't discuss them, and neither she nor Gold came out of their part of the ship.

And the first three kinos Eli tried to sneak into that part of the ship to look around were sent back in various states of disrepair – crushed, smashed, and one with every individual component carefully twisted into near unrecognizability. After that, Gold apparently got tired of letting the things in far enough to take them apart and just kept them out.

Now, here Gold was.

He looked at Scott, still passed out from the fever, and the blue growths covering his arm.

"Any plans for dealing with that?" he asked TJ.

"Amputation," she said.

"Ah. Ever done that before?"

"No."

"Pity. I should have brought Belle. She's done it enough times."

Eli cleared his throat. "Uh, was that an attempt to make Belle sound creepy and scary? Cause it kind of worked."

"No," Gold said sharply. "It was an attempt to point out that Belle has already lived through a worse war than anything you've ever seen."

A war.

He'd alluded to that before. A war where Belle had been a prisoner and had been through things that Gold was determined she would never experience again. No matter what he had to do.

Even if it meant coming back from the grave.

Gold didn't go into details.

He walked over to Scott and knelt down beside him. "Anyhow, amputation isn't an option. It's already spread through his system."

"The infection's still limited to his arm –"

Gold had managed to slip Greer's knife out of its sheath before Greer noticed he was reaching for it. Greer saw it appear in the man's hand, reached for where it had been, then strangled down a dozen, probably lethal responses to take it back from Gold – lethal to Greer.

Gold ignored him, making a cut on Scott's arm above the infected area.

The blood was blue.

Gold pulled out a lighter – TJ couldn't remember if there even were any lighters on _Destiny_. She was pretty sure Rush had never had one. Gold brought up the flame and passed it back and forth on the blade, burning away the infected blood. Then, he handed the knife back to Greer, hilt first.

"It was a plant that did this?" Gold asked. "Or something that looks like a plant?"

"Except when it's looking like a snake, yeah," Eli said.

"Show me."

Eli stared at him as though Gold had told him to cut off his own head so he could get a better look at his tonsils. "What?"

"The plants. I need to see them."

"They, uh, they _attack_ people. And infect them."

"I'd noticed. Show me."

"Uh . . . ."

Gold didn't bother to hide his irritation. "Eli, I've been skulking in the far corners of the ship to avoid people who think I'm some kind of parasite worm and who might try to shove my head through a Stargate just to see if they can decapitate me by turning it off halfway through. Despite that, I've just come through a Stargate. So, assume I'm not doing this for laughs and assume I have a plan.

"You, on the other hand, aren't getting back on the ship unless you can disinfect Scott. You just found out the only plan you have won't work.

"That means my plan is the only hope you've got left.

"Now, show me the plants."

Eli scrambled and showed him the plants.

"They're moving in on us," Eli said. "We figure an hour, tops, and we'll be cut off."

"Less if those spores explode out of Scott's arm," Gold said, not sounding as though it mattered. "Interesting. You're right. They're not plants. Interesting parasites . . . ." he trailed off, deep in thought. Then, he glanced at Eli. "Well, go ahead. I know you want to say it."

"Uh . . . takes one to know one?"

"There, that wasn't so hard was it?" He looked back at the plants. "And this won't be so hard either." He stretched out his hand.

The field caught fire.

Gold raised up his other hand behind him, as though he were signaling something.

The wind began to blow down from their direction. Towards the field.

_Right,_ TJ thought, _keeping any spores away from us._

The plants made strange, crying sounds as they died.

Gold nodded in satisfaction. Then, he walked back to Scott and grabbed him by the arm.

Scott screamed.

He thrashed and tried to pull away from Gold, but Gold held fast.

Greer tried to grab Gold and pull him off Scott. Before he could reach him, Gold made a gesture, as though he were flicking water off his hand.

Greer went flying back.

The blue growths on Scott's arm blackened, then began to flake away, like ashes floating up on the heat of a campfire.

The skin beneath was pink and new, like the healed skin beneath a scab.

Gold held him a moment longer doing – whatever it was he was doing.

TJ stared at Gold's hand.

For a moment – just a moment – it wasn't a human hand.

It was green-gold and sparkling. It looked more like scales than skin. The fingers ended in long, blackened nails.

He let Scott go.

TJ ran to Scott and checked on him.

Just like that, the fever had broken. She made a cut up on his arm. The blood was red.

She looked at Gold, who was absently rubbing the hand he'd held Scott with. "It's all right," he said. "All the alien material in him is dead."

"How – how can you tell?"

_And how did you do that?_

_And _what_ are you? What are you _really?

Gold smiled sardonically. "As Mr. Wallace could tell you, it takes one to know one." He glanced back at the smoking field. "I suggest you come back to the ship. You have time, but new plants will move in where these ones were eventually. And I don't feel like exterminating an entire species today." He began to walk towards the Stargate.

"Why did you come?" TJ asked. "You've been holed up behind your defenses since – since we found out about you. Why take a risk and come out now?"

Gold shrugged. "Perhaps to remind you that, while I'm avoiding a fight, it's not because I think I'd lose." He nodded towards the still burning field. "And, I could use the entertainment.

"Besides, I'm your daughter's godfather, remember? If anything happens to you, I have to take care of her. And Belle and I have better things to do. Now, pack up whatever you think you need, and _let's get out of here._"

X

The personnel Young had had watching the Stargate were filtering back to work Rumplestiltskin and the others came through. Rumplestiltskin hadn't done anything complicated to evacuate the room. Funny how, lightyears across the universe, people still evacuated if you set off some smoke bombs and a few alarms.

They'd left, and he'd walked through the Stargate. By the time they realized what had been going on, they were dealing with the return of their little, lost lambs.

He'd had a few tricks up his sleeve to go unnoticed, but he didn't even need those. No one even noted the small man standing towards the back of the group, and they certainly didn't notice as he walked away.

He kept to the shadows as he walked back to "his" section of the ship, listening to the com chatter – Young had finally figured out he'd been on the planet. Lieutenant Johansen thought he'd been there at the colonel's request. Or that he'd at least asked the colonel.

Perhaps he should have. Belle had suggested it when he told her he was going to help. Build bridges and all that.

Except that he hadn't trusted Young not to take advantage of the opportunity and burn that bridge right out from under him.

Temptation could be so hard to resist.

And . . . he hadn't wanted to deal with the temptation of what he might do to Young if it happened.

Instead, well, either Young should be slightly reassured by the common place methods Gold had used to get past the crew – no corpses, no transformations, no use of strange, bizarre powers –

Or Young would be more worried than ever at how casually Rumplestiltskin had walked into what should be one of the most secure sections of the ship and did whatever he wanted with it.

Either way, it didn't matter. He had bigger things to worry about.

They all did.

"You're back!" Belle said when she saw him, her eyes lighting up. Then, she saw the look on his face. "Rum, what's wrong? Didn't you save them? Are they all right?"

"They're fine. For now. That's not what's wrong.

"Belle, when I healed Scott – I wasn't drawing on _Destiny, _I had to use what I could gather from the planet – my hand changed. It was the way it was in our old world.

"The curse – it's still there. And it's trying to come back."


End file.
